Arsenal vs Wolves: Arteta’s side can handle the task

Just when you thought you had enough Wolves discussion, there is, in fact, more Wolves discussion to be had for Arsenal. The Gunners are facing Wolverhampton Wanderers and Bruno Lage again, and while the stakes were high last time they met earlier this month, they might only be higher this time around.

That is because, while Arsenal was able to eek the 10-man and 1-0 clean sheet out, Wolves have played well since then and remain hot on the Gunners’ heels. How Arsenal responds to Wolves this time will go a long way to show the resiliency and sustainability of this current iteration of Arsenal.

With the likes of Bukayo Saka, Emile Smith Rowe, Martin Odegaard and Gabriel Martinelli available, there are few times where Arsenal should not be scoring at some point within a match. Against a tough and still-aggravated Wolves team – that desperately wants to rub it in the faces of the players who celebrated on their field two weeks ago – the Gunners will have to play better this time around than they did in their very impressive 10-man stand.

Yet this team can definitely do that, and not getting any ridiculous yellow or red cards will be a welcome start to that. Other than that, as was noted in the last Arsenal win by one of the commentators on the American telecast, should the Gunners play good, clean football, there will be few teams that can honestly handle them the rest of this season.

Arsenal take on Wolves again – what will Mikel Arteta’s side need to produce in the Premier League this time?

This time, in a more friendly setting, the Gunners will have a chance to play their attacking and front-footed football, but so will Wolves. As can be seen by their results in matches against teams who aren’t Arsenal, this team is no easy out, and they remain only two points behind this team in the race for a Premier League top-four league table finish.

Tottenham, meanwhile, can be world-beaters one match, and a sham team the next, so there you are. Things are complicated between the current fourth-place side, Manchester United, and the current eighth place side, Tottenham, and between makeup matches, games in hand and point prognostications, no one is quite sure where anyone will end up or land by May.

Whoever starts for Arsenal up front and in attack will have to bring the same tenacity that this team demonstrated when they took revenge against Brentford the other day, and should they play this way, the match will be more lopsided than just 1-0 to be sure. With how Odegaard has played as the season has gone on it will be hard to not feature him in any match coming up. Meanwhile, fitting Martinelli and Smith Rowe into the side together remains the challenge for Mikel Arteta.

Sure, it is good to have each player be able to come in and spell the other or Saka when necessary, and this team also has Nicolas Pepe waiting to become as great as he can be, but as this team continues to get negligible production from Alexandre Lacazette and Eddie Nketiah, creative means might be looked into more seriously.

Yet that is a piece for a later date. Whoever is starting will have to set the tone early as was seen against Brentford. Doing a double over Wolves would be two high quality wins given their strength at this point in the year, and it would give the Gunners a real advantage over at least one team that continues to hang around them on the league table. With upcoming matches against some of the others, such as Tottenham, West Ham and Manchester United, there will be more chances to gain that same advantage as well.

But against Wolves? Should Thomas Partey and Granit Xhaka play in their controlling manner and do nothing stupid on the pitch, in front of the remarkably strong and sturdy backline that Arteta has developed and built – with or without Tomiyasu – who stand in front of the iron giant that is Aaron Ramsdale, this team is good against most teams not named Manchester City or Liverpool.

This Gunners squad has to keep the momentum going as other teams make mistakes and plateau out in real-time. Arsenal are in the driving seat for a top spot at the end of this season, but they still must do all the work necessary to finish in one of those spots.

While it most likely will be fourth should that happen, it could be the third should the right things occur; Arsenal must put the pressure on to get the best result imaginable, and come the next summer window, a better, more improved Arsenal team could very well exist at the start of the new campaigns.